Looking for a new snack or salad topping? Kentucky grown crickets could hit store shelves

There’s an all-hours symphony being performed in a double-wide trailer in Garrard County.

The musicians? Thousands of chirping house crickets.

TJ Rayhill, the owner of Bluegrass Crickets, conducts their performance, raising the crickets from egg to about 55-60 days of age. Weekly he sells and ships out around 150,000 crickets for use in pet shops, as fishing bait or as food for animals at the Louisville Zoo.

But Rayhill is hoping his crickets can make it into grocery stores in the near future.

“We raise our crickets as if they’re going on my dinner plate,” Rayhill said. His company will be the first in the state to produce crickets for human consumption, he said.

“Ultimately, our goal is to move into (business-to-business) wholesale,” Rayhill said. “Get on shelves at Whole Foods or Kroger where anybody can walk down the row and pick up a bag of our granola or pick up a bag of our crickets and put them on their salads.”

What do crickets taste like?

The few thousand crickets Rayhill has leftover get prepared for human consumption in a couple different ways. First they’re taken off food and water for a couple days.

Then some are dehydrated, flavored and eaten whole. For those who have never eaten a whole cricket, Rayhill said the texture is similar to eating a potato chip. Without seasoning, the cricket has a sort of “nutty, salty flavor to it.” But like a potato chip, the cricket can take on the flavor of its seasonings.

“We do like a garlic parmesan, we do a white cheddar, we do a raspberry chipotle, we do a barbecue,” Rayhill said. “So that nutty, earthy taste quickly gets kind of covered up by those seasonings.”

However most consumers likely won’t encounter Rayhill’s crickets in their whole form. Many of his crickets designated for human consumption are dehydrated and turned into a protein-rich powder. That powder can be mixed in with flour or granola.

Samples of his granola — which comes in flavors like maple bourbon — were a big hit at the SOAR Summit in Corbin this past October, Rayhill said. Many were coming back for more, asking when it would be available for sale.

“People are looking at it trying to figure out where the cricket legs are or whatever,” Rayhill said. “It’s all ground into a powder, you’re not gonna see it at all.”

At the moment, Rayhill doesn’t produce enough excess crickets to consistently offer crickets for human consumption. That’s soon to change. He is currently moving his cricket operation into a larger building in Casey County. After adding a few employees, he’s hoping he’ll be able to ship over 1 million crickets per week.

When products like Rayhill’s cricket granola hit the market, they’ll be sold under the brand name “Plente” and labeled as cricket-based protein. He’s hoping they can be available midway through 2024. Those interested in finding out first can sign up for updates on the Bluegrass Crickets website at bluegrassfeedersky.com.

“It’s one of those things that if I can get them to try it,” Rayhill said, “I’d say 9 out of 10 times, maybe even more, 9 and a half out of 10 times they’re going to be interested in the product in some capacity.”

Why do people eat crickets?

Rayhill’s business has already generated interest locally. This year, Bluegrass Crickets was apart Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky’s Invest 606 business accelerator. His business also won first place and $10,000 in SOAR’s Startup Appalachia Pitch Competition. He was a keynote speaker at SOAR’s October Summit.

Interest in using insect protein in animal feed and as food for humans has been growing nationally. In October, major U.S. meat producer Tyson announced that it would be investing in and assisting a Netherlands-based insect ingredient maker to build a stateside factory, CNN reported.

The Seattle Mariners made headlines two years ago when toasted, chili-lime seasoned grasshoppers were revealed to be among their most popular ballpark snacks.

In 2013, a United Nations report promoted the wider adoption of eating insect protein because of their more sustainable environmental impact and that over 2 billion worldwide already ate them as part of traditional diets. In early 2023, the European Union approved the sale of mealworms and cricket powder as food.

Raising crickets or other insects for protein requires less space and resources than traditional animal-raising techniques, Rayhill said. He tells those interested in the business that farmland nationwide is decreasing while the global population continues to grow. His goal isn’t to replace the cattle market, he said, but to provide an alternative in a world with increasing demands on natural resources.

“I’m not really sure how we’re going to increase our protein production, unless we go to factory farms,” Rayhill said. “And you know, most people, even diehard protein eaters, traditional protein eaters don’t really like the idea of factory farms.”

Salad topped with crickets

Rayhill first got interested in uses for insect protein while doing studying for a master’s degree in environmental education at Goshen College. For a project, he was researching an environmental solution to food insecurity.

Through his research he found that a family of four could raise enough mealworms to meet their annual protein needs in a three-square-foot space. Looking to find work related to insect protein, Rayhill got connected with a company in Montana that wanted to start an insect protein co-op, but that business closed up during the pandemic.

Rayhill, a Kentucky native from Mount Washington, heard about the farm in Lancaster and met its owner, Jeff Collins, who wanted to sell it. Collins had bought the farm from Elaine and Leroy Henderson, who had originally started the Garrard County operation after running a much larger cricket farm in Florida.

“It’s like having millions of children,” Elaine Collins told the Herald-Leader in a 2012 interview. “Somebody’s got to feed and water them every day.”

But neither of the previous owners expanded into the human consumption market, Rayhill said.

Early online advertising will probably be directed toward those who are health conscious or sustainably minded, Rayhill said. Cricket protein may also be a great alternative for those alpha-gal syndrome, a disease spread by ticks that makes people allergic to red meat or other mammal products.

Rayhill is also proud the business will be located in Casey County where he and his partner also have another business in the county seat of Liberty. He’s also president of the local farmer’s market and serves on the board of the tourism commission.

“Being involved is super important,” Rayhill said.